Witching Wonders
by SnowCoveredGlass
Summary: Hermione Granger's life before Hogwarts. A summer of excitement inside the mind of everyone's favorite young witch as she experiences her first glimpse into the wizarding world of Harry Potter. (Please Review)
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, my name is Harriet and I'm starting this fanfiction to practice my writing skills since I don't have time in my schedule to add creative writing ****(feedback would be great!)**. I took a _**Harry Potter class **_**where I wrote this story about pre-Hogwarts Hermione, and I thought I'd share it to get some critique so I may grow as a writer. It may not be what you expect (I was kind of in a rush writing it), but I hope you're open to what I have to share. I'm going to try to fix errors before I post the chapters so the reading experience isn't too terrible – thanks and enjoy!**

Outside number 8 Heathgate, the usually plain London sky bled a painting of bright, exotic colors as the sun returned to its resting place below the horizon, like watercolor trickled over a vast wet canvas. Two flame red Wellington boots stomped out into the autumn air, their tiny footfalls landing with the _tick tock_ rhythm of running time, crackling on leaves tinged with crimson, yellow, orange, and brown. Above the small girl standing in them, the sun finally gone, a cover of dark murky gray began leaking into the bright sky, stirring in with a hint of wispy clouds. The trees around her shed off their beautiful bright feathers. Leaves plopped down to coat the ground like a cloak of red, blanketing the dirt and shielding it from the bitter cold. The girl strode down the concrete path leading away from a thick mahogany front door, and stopped to plop down on her usual spot atop the sturdy iron bench in front of her home.

Though spooky decorations littered the lawns on her street, sitting outside on her own didn't scare her—she'd never been scared of Halloween. After all, none of it was _real_. She brought out an unfinished book and began reading, her tiny hands tracing over words on its delicate pages, each blocky letter combining with the next to form a harmonic symphony in her mind. Completely absorbed in her new favorite story, she didn't even notice the group of her schoolmates creeping up on her. And, when they each attempted to frighten her by uttering their spookiest, most ghastly screeches, launching a barrage of water balloons in the direction of her thick brown hair, nothing she had ever encountered or even heard about in her life would have prepared her for what happened next.

The girl jumped off the bench as if it had burned her and screamed so loudly the whole world must have heard her cry for help. A gust of wind came, pegging her assailants with dried leaves and pine needles fraught with dust and dirt from the ground beneath their feet, as a crackling noise brought branches crashing down from the oak tree above their heads. Her five terrified attackers hastily fled the chaotic scene wide-eyed with fear. They shouted for their parents, running as if chased down by a hungry man-eating cheetah.

Curiously, after the whole incident, the girl remained perfectly unharmed; she stood, shivering in her wet clothes, in the same exact spot she'd been on when she heard the first spooky screech—the ghost of her terror still etched across her face—but her hair remained dust and pine needle-free. And, when she finally collected her book from the bench and went back inside for dinner, the only evidence that showed she'd even witnessed the dust storm remained in the grime beneath her bright red boots and the hushed whispers of five astonished schoolboys.

* * *

Hermione Granger woke with a start. The mangled bedding strewn around her legs and on the floor told her she'd tossed and turned all night. She tried to shake off shivers and erase memories of the expressions of revulsion echoed across the faces of her five schoolmates as they ran away from her. However, as much as she tried to forget about this particular incident, it always came creeping back to her in thoughts and dreams. Of course, other strange incidents had occurred around Hermione as well.

She remembered her talk with Professor Morrison, the director of her previous school, after bits of broken glass from a shattered mirror miraculously landed all over Mackenzie Mather's brand new hair cut. She'd called Hermione a "mop head" when the two encountered each other in the girl's lavatory that day, and—before either of the girls could react—a shower of crystal doused her hair. Hermione had tried to explain, to no avail, that she had no idea how a perfectly intact mirror could suddenly shatter on all its own. Of course, such a thing couldn't possibly happen. Things like that only happened in books, in which, realistically, the occurrence should have a simple explanation behind it—a childish prank, for instance, or a faulty screw in the wall.

Then, there was that time just last year when Hermione's parents invited, or rather forced, her to accompany them to an opening party for the new reptile exhibit in the London Zoo. All she planned to do that day entailed staying home and finishing the book she recently started—a story about an eccentric young girl and her experiences moving into a new town—but, as her parents didn't exactly give her a choice in the matter, she reluctantly went with her them to the event. It was _boring_.

As Hermione sat lethargically on a bench, having lost her parents in the throng of adults, she wished she'd snuck the book out with her. Even the snakes and lizards honored at the party slept on their rocks or hid away from view. Though she didn't blame them for their show of lassitude, she'd wanted something—anything—to do. Just as she thought this, she noticed the golden cover of a thin book out of the corner of her eye, a book that looked alarmingly like the one she'd placed on her desk before leaving the house that evening. And, after opening it to find her name scrawled behind the front cover, she gaped at it. She'd have lied if she said it didn't automatically occur to her that the book came to her precisely because she craved it so badly. Though she could've passed the incident on as a fluke back then, these strange accidents and coincidences had happened so often since Halloween five years ago, that she could no longer pretend they never occurred.

Ever since that fateful Halloween, when she first encountered her _strangeness_, she would often find herself waking in the early hours from haunting memories fraught with fear and confusion. She'd never asked for odd things to happen around her—they just always seemed to follow her wherever she went, especially whenever she felt particularly threatened or anxious. Though they seemed to occur with good intentions, they didn't help much with her social life. In class, Hermione's schoolmates ostracized her, labeling her as "that Strange Granger;" nobody invited her to their homes for sleepovers or to their extravagant birthday parties, though she was often forced to hear about the celebrations in class the following day. Instead of attending festivities, she buried herself in books, finding that she much preferred the fascinating characters she met briefly in paper and ink to the people she spent half her day with at school.

The summer holidays dragged on, and she and her parents recently returned back to their home in London after a month vacationing in the Polynesian Islands. Though she'd spent hours soaking in sunlight, she remained as pale as the flecks of sand she often found stuck between her toes in the hotel room. In the lazy drawn out hours of summertime back in her simple room, Hermione had begun preparing for Cornapelle High, the school she'd attend next year. Textbooks stacked on her desk in alphabetical order, and, as she'd had a lot of time to read and had an extremely good memory, she had already finished studying two of the six subjects she'd start to learn about in the fall.

Deciding at last to launch out of bed, Hermione rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before sinking her feet on the plush white carpet, her pajamas falling back down over her skinny ankles. She walked to her bathroom and turned on the light, looking wearily into the gold-rimmed mirror above the sink. Her brown bushy hair looked especially unruly in the mornings, but she didn't bother attempting to drag a comb through it, as she figured she'd look even worse with bits of plastic bristles stuck in her tangles. Evidently deciding to ignore her hair, she turned on the tap and splashed her face with cool water before grabbing her toothbrush and squeezing toothpaste on top. Gritting her pearly whites at the mirror, she brushed her smile, not without noticing for the millionth time her huge front teeth. She couldn't ignore them, as they looked so large, and as her parents, dentists, never failed to bring up dental hygiene in everyday conversation. She hoped she'd ged braces on soon—as if she needed something else to help her stand out from the other kids at school. With a shrug, she exited the bathroom, grabbed a textbook from her desk, and made her way downstairs to breakfast.

**Thanks for reading this far. I'll be posting the next bit soon. Please leave a review if you could, even if its really short!**


	2. Chapter 2

One normal day, Hermione felt the monotony of the summer holiday as she strode into the kitchen, the smell of a good breakfast beckoning to her. Though it just turned seven in the morning on a Saturday, Hermione's parents already occupied the kitchen. Mr. Granger sat at the table, eyes glued to the morning post, while Mrs. Granger stood at the counter, scooping eggs and bacon onto three plainly decorated plates.

"Good morning sunshine," Mr. Granger said cheerily, seeing his daughter walk into the room, "sleep well?"

"Of course not. She looks exhausted! Hermione, dear, have some breakfast. Didn't I tell you not to stay up too late reading?"

Not waiting for a response, Mrs. Granger pulled out a chair for Hermione, motioning for her to sit, and placed a plate full of protein in front of her. Hermione watched her mother set two more plates on the table before sitting down in-between her and her father, gesturing once more for them to begin eating. The Granger family always ate breakfast together; Mr. Granger sifting through the pages of his newspaper as he read the news, and Mrs. Granger talking pleasantly with Hermione about a book they'd both enjoyed reading. They were chattering away on this precise topic when the doorbell rang, a shrill shock to the muted conversation around the circular breakfast table. Before Hermione could rise, she saw her father set down his freshly crumpled newspaper and stand up to open the door, looking puzzled. They weren't expecting visitors that morning.

"Just a sec—" grunted Mr. Granger. Hermione watched him stride out of the kitchen and open the front door to find a peculiarly dressed woman patiently standing on the other side. The woman had her grayish-white hair pinned up in a tight bun, and wore a terse frown. Though she looked old in age, she seemed wise but not frail, as she emitted an air of strength and confidence. She wore dark blue robes with a matching pointy hat as well as a sleek black cloak that stretched from her thin shoulders all the way down behind her to the concrete beneath her feet. In one hand, she carried a delicate wooden stick, in the other, a worn paper envelope addressed in emerald green ink. He could see no stamp on the letter. Evidently, she was not stepping in for the postman.

"Hello," Mr. Granger said politely, "how may I help you today? Miss…"

"McGonagall." The lady answered curtly, before striding boldly into the house, leaving Mr. Granger, looking perplexed, to close the door behind her.

* * *

"You must be Ms. Granger's parents," the stranger observed, now sitting around the kitchen table with the Granger family.

"I apologize for my rather impolite entry," she continued, "but, you see, secrecy is to the utmost importance, and I fear I was beginning to draw a bit of attention to myself. I've come, of course, to bring Hermione her acceptance letter to Hogwarts School, as well as to answer any questions you all might have concerning her potential education there. The school prides itself in training the world's most magically talented students, starting at age eleven, in the arts of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an area in which your daughter has shown great promise, but little expertise. As Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts, I feel I am well suited to tell you anything you'll want to know about the school before you agree to send her. I must stress, as well, that for children like young Hermione, education at Hogwarts is an invaluable learning experience, and your decision to send, or not send her should be well-thought-out."

Finishing her speech at last, Professor Deputy-Headmistress McGonagall smiled and held out the letter in her left hand to a wonderstruck Hermione. By now, the three Grangers had forgotten their full breakfast plates completely. Had the woman said something about _Witchcraft?_ Hermione didn't dare guess; the lady had spoken so _seriously_. What was going on? She glanced quickly at her parents, and to her relief, saw they looked just as confused by McGonagall's news as she looked, if not even more so. Hermione took the letter in trembling hands, feeling the smooth, thick packaging before reading the bright green address:

Ms. H. Granger,

The Bedroom _at the_ Top _of the_ Stairs,

8 Heathgate,

Hampstead Garden Suburb,

LONDON.

Not stopping to wonder how the letter-writer knew where she slept, Hermione carefully opened the ancient envelope to reveal two pieces of crisp brown parchment tucked inside. She saw an acceptance letter to a school named Hogwarts and a supply list full of oddities she'd need to purchase for a school year there, which, curiously, included a wand. She immediately sought out the schoolbooks. They were the strangest books she'd ever heard of—_A History of Magic_, _The Standard Book of Spells, A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration,_ and more. Well, if this _was_ some kind of joke, and Hermione did not think it could be, the planners had really out-done themselves—spell books? Owls? She looked up baffled from her quick read, and silently handed the letter to her parents, gawking at Professor McGonagall. What on earth could this all mean?

Hermione watched as her parents read over the succinct writing on the two pages. When they could not pretend to read any longer, they looked up over the parchment at Professor McGonagall; she smiled back at them. They looked confused but ecstatic. Hermione read their expressions: _if this was real, and Professor McGonagall seemed to think there was nothing odd about it, it was the most wonderful news that had ever graced their doorstep. _

"Now," said McGonagall, breaking the stunned silence, "as your family is of non-magic origin, I daresay I have a lot of explaining to do. But, first, there is the issue about the Statute of Secrecy in the Wizarding World. As you all may have guessed, witches and wizards have been living in secret all over the world since the dawn of civilization. However, we magical folk prefer quiet lives void of the chaos of having to give magical solutions to non-magic problems. The secret of our existence has lasted for centuries; thus, it would be very gracious indeed if you could help keep our privacy for a few more years." She fixed the Grangers with a shrewd expression, then continued:

"Your daughter, Hermione, has shown great skill and fantastic magical abilities since the age of six, about the age in which young witches and wizards first show signs of magic. Though accidental magic performed before training is forgiven, I do advise you all to avoid public spectacles, as they are very messy for the Ministry to clean up. Ah yes—you don't know about the Ministry of Magic…"

Professor McGonagall continued speaking in this manner for a long time. It seemed she could not explain Hermione's acceptance to Hogwarts without then describing in detail each of the subjects taught there, a place called Diagon Alley (where the Grangers would visit soon to get her "school supplies"), Gringotts Bank (run by _real _goblins), the game of Quidditch (which the Grangers didn't even pretend to understand), Owl Post, and even the Daily Prophet (which carries news to the Wizarding World). By the time she finished speaking, and the Grangers exhausted their question-asking abilities, the four had finished eating dinner. The sun had already returned to its resting spot below the horizon, and darkness came creeping into the silent kitchen from opened windows like a cold draft. After a few _thank you_'s, a last nod towards Mr. and Mrs. Granger, and a small smile at Hermione, McGonagall stood up and strode back out the door just as suddenly as she came in. The hush she left in her wake did not last for long, however; both the Granger parents exploded into a ruckus of praises, singing compliments at Hermione like a duet of mockingbirds.

"I always knew our little girl was special—said it all the time, didn't I?" Mr. Granger announced proudly, clapping his daughter on the back.

"That's only because you're _required_ to—you know—as a dad and all," Hermione retorted, smartly; "According to my Sociology textbook_,_ there's a sixty-five percent chance you don't actually mean it at all."

"False statistics," Mr. Granger said with a shake of his head, "besides, why would you believe a batty old textbook over your old man?" Mr. Granger made his best impression of an emotionally wounded father, but he ended up simply looking like he had a bad stomach virus. You'd think, thought Hermione, that since he saw so many pained patients at his dental office everyday, he'd at least form the position of the mouth right.

* * *

**Note: Thanks again for reading and please leave a review!**


	3. Chapter 3

Back upstairs in her bedroom, Hermione remained awake for hours, mentally sifting over everything McGonagall said to her throughout the previous day. She remembered how different she felt on her most recent trip up the stairs to her bedroom, a journey she'd made everyday since she learned how to walk. She felt, for the first time, as if she could really understand herself, and, also for the first time, as if her whole life up until that moment had been a humongous laughable joke. She'd believed, all eleven years of her life, that she'd stay stuck as the designated oddball forever, but now, McGonagall told her that all the strange things that had ever happened to her (or rather, that she'd made happen to others) signified her _belonging_ to another lifestyle. These strange situations, oddly enough, actually symbolized normalcy, just not in the world her parents brought her up in. Oh, the power of perspective. But even though all Professor McGonagall said seemed so honest, she found it hard to believe _everything_. How could witches and wizards hide so well out in secret all around the world? Surely someone had to slip up on the rules at some time… but, of course, perhaps that problem could easily clear up with a magic spell.

Magic spells! Hermione always spent most of her time reading nonfiction (she liked the surety that came with facts), but when she picked up her occasional fictional read, she'd always been baffled by magic. It didn't make any _sense_ at all—how could you speak a few phrases of gibberish and expect to make lightning strike someone? However, now that she was confronted with the field of _real_ magic, she suddenly felt a giddy eagerness to pursue it and learn as much about it as she could. Its unpredictable nature seemed now to excite her rather than irk her. The way McGonagall explained it just made everything sound so normal, and that was something Hermione needed more of in her life. From _transfiguring_ teacups into rodents and fighting strange creatures like pixies (which, it turns out, are nothing like kind fairies), everything had a simple, magical, explanation.

But then, the bizarreness of it all exhilarated Hermione—like McGonagall let her in on a huge secret: the biggest secret in the world, a whole other way of life. Suddenly, all those years left out from party invitations or ignored at the lunch table, while her classmates whispered secrets to each other under their breaths, didn't _matter_. The safe walls of Hermione's quick mind would take the secret of the Wizarding World, a world where she hoped to one day belong in, to the grave. At that moment, she felt _normal_, or at least as normal as a newly discovered young witch could be, and to her it felt better than anything in the whole universe.

Hermione rubbed her stiff back, just realizing how long she'd sat leaning on the rugged surface of the heavy wooden chairs beneath her breakfast table. She puffed up a pillow and gingerly laid back on it, attempting to ease into an uneasy sleep. In bed, she always read a chapter or two from her favorite book before she could succumb to sleep, but after her exhausting day of revelations, she didn't think it would take long to delve deep into the land of her dreams.

Just as Hermione began drifting off, a thought occurred to her, as thoughts often do when one hangs on the brink of slumber. What if she could never belong in the Wizarding World either? What if she could never fit into any society—magical or _muggle _(to use a word from Professor McGonagall's extensive vocabulary)? Well, she certainly didn't have a magical background—what if she couldn't fit in anywhere? Or—what if, just _what if,_ everyone from wizarding families already knew exactly how to _transfigure_ toothpicks into needles? What if everyone who was anyone played the game "Quidditch"—how could she ever admit to her intense fear of heights? Her list of worries droned on and on in her head like little fiery wasps humming in her ears. No matter how hard she tried to drone them out, a new problem, even more dreadful than the last, crowded her mind, and by the time Professor McGonagall arrived back on the Granger's doorstep to take Hermione's family to visit Diagon Alley—in order to collect Hermione's school things (her parents decided on sending her to Hogwarts the previous night)—and to get permission to connect their chimney to the magical floo network (only for Hermione's transportation back home from the magical world during Christmas break), Hermione no longer thought it such a good decision to leave the sanctuary of her simple home and join the complexities of a society built on magic.

* * *

The sun shone dully through a cover of soft gray clouds like a blanketed child breaking from sweet slumber on the morning of Hermione's first encounter with the magical world. Though she felt rather queasy, she brushed off her nerves like she did the dust accumulating on her shoulder from the Underground, and tried to match the rapid pace of Professor McGonagall, quick, though she didn't look it. McGonagall had abandoned her long robes and sleek hat for an oversized purple blouse tucked into a long violet skirt that stretched all the way to the ground, for the sake of secrecy—an old woman wearing robes didn't stroll casually into the London Underground everyday.

"Professor McGonagall," Hermione gasped between large gulps of air, "last night, I didn't think to ask, but—"

"Oh of course there's a lot we still haven't had time to discuss—don't worry Miss Granger, it will all make sense once you arrive at the school and begin classes." Hermione shuddered to think she'd have to go that long without satisfying her curiosity about the magical world. She couldn't even imagine arriving at Hogwarts without the faintest idea how to brew a potion like the ones McGonagall told her about the previous night. She continued her question;

"I just wondered, Professor, how do you get into this platform? I don't think I've ever seen 9¾ on a platform sign." It'd been a while since she'd been to Kings Cross Station (as her family traveled by plane to their vacation spot this summer holiday), so she might just have forgotten about that particular platform, but she thought it best to make sure.

"Of course not, dear child! Do you want groups of muggles walking in on a whole platform full of witches and wizards?" After fixing Hermione with another one of her stern expressions, she continued to explain how to get onto Platform 9¾ through one of its entrances: the invisible barrier between Platform 9 and Platform 10. It was all completely nuts, but it fit into everything McGonagall said so far, so Hermione took it in her stride.

McGonagall led the Grangers up a bustling street boasting shops of every kind. Busy shoppers roamed around the sidewalks, walking in and out of shops selling books, boutiques filled with clothes, and even a mini parlor selling How To guides to magic tricks, which Professor McGonagall made a point to scoff at while she strode by. Hermione had just wondered where on earth Professor McGonagall was dragging them off to when the woman stopped abruptly in front of a lifeless shop the three Grangers had failed to notice prior to having it pointed out to them. A dusty sign above the shop read "The Leaky Cauldron."

Instead of going inside the gloomy pub, which McGonagall wasn't too fond of, but the looks of it, she led the Grangers through a small walkway just large enough for a single person to walk through at a time. McGonagall explained this wasn't the _usual _way to get to Diagon Alley, but the path was paved specially for first-time visits to the place. The four ambled through the long winding path in single-file, before reaching the vast square garden it opened into—though you couldn't really call it a garden. The cobblestone flooring bore no life except for a litter of shrubs here and there and small crowd of weeds sprouting out through cracks in the rocks. McGonagall brought out a small wooden stick, which sparked at its end when she pulled it out of a pocket in her overlong skirt, and tapped it lightly on the top of her head. Immediately, her "muggle clothes," as she called them, started becoming replaced by a set of long, burgundy robes with the fluidity of running water. Evidently forgetting this behavior did not scream "ordinary" to the Grangers, she flicked her wand once more, and a few of the bricks lining the wall of the square glowed red. Before long, the entire wall to which they belonged melted into the ground in front of the quartet's feet, leaving no sign that it stood there just moments before.

"Wow," said Mr. Granger, amazed, "would you look at that—melted! Just like _ice_! How absurdly wonderful…Oh my…"

"Indeed." Mrs. Granger echoed, squinting through thick lashes at the sight the melted wall revealed. Hermione didn't trust herself to speak. She thought her mouth had already dropped clean off its hinges to join the weeds peeking out of the ground under her feet.

Large structures loomed up in front of her, taller than the brick wall that previously blocked the buildings from view. Huge shops opened onto a large crowded street with a throng of many oddly colored robes joining together to form a rainbow school of fish pushing and shoving to gain access to sales and bargains. Owls soared freely over the heads of the hundreds of witches and wizards, flitting from shop to shop, cooing softly into their many feathers. The tingling of dozens of bells echoed softly in the distance, adding to the soundtrack of hundreds of muffled voices and the thudding footfalls of many more feet. A golden sign hanging from the shop closest to the Grangers read "Twilfitt and Tattings," which glittered profusely though the sun in the sky remained hidden behind storm gray clouds. Loud chatter filled Hermione's ears, and she strained to hear the people speaking.

"C'mon Bert give it a break. It's just not worth five Galleons—that right there. You can't seriously think that's _dragon skin_, can yeh? Three Galleon's my last word—oh, alright then, I'll throw in a Sickle." A stout man gestured wildly at a tiny brown pouch sitting on the counter of a dark, dingy shop. The shopkeeper looked annoyed, but nodded and held out his hand, and before Hermione could see what he took from the man, Professor McGonagall, her thin lips pursed in a flat line, had hustled her onward.

Seeing witches and wizards in their element, Hermione immediately felt uncomfortable in her shirt and jeans. Her stomach churned nervously as she attempted to cover herself with the miniscule scraps of paper she held in her hands, which included a list of the supplies she'd need to purchase. Already, the Grangers had begun to draw attention to themselves, what with their peculiar dress and their flabbergasted expressions while viewing things probably as usual to the typical witch as toilet paper.

Hermione watched as women in pointy flowery hats and billowing black robes exchanged thick round coins for books and quills, and as children her own age, similarly dressed, raced around the corner shouting about a new racing broom—_the fastest ever_. McGonagall must've forgotten to mention that witches and wizards used a different type of currency in her Wizarding 101 lesson; Hermione shouldn't have foolishly thought Hogwart's Deputy Headmistress told her everything one could know about magic. Plainly, however, Hermione remained right about one thing—fitting into this world would take more effort than she'd ever thought.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and please leave a review.**


	4. Chapter 4

Mr. Granger drove his family to Kings Cross Station on the first of September. The sun beat down its blazing hot rays, and even the small sprinkle of clouds in the bright blue sky seemed to droop with sweat and exhaustion. Sadness seemed to coat the drive, wafting in through the slightly ajar windows; Hermione anxiously recited the Introduction to _Hogwarts, A History_ under her breath, while her parents, silent, tried to keep from succumbing to tears—they wouldn't see their only daughter again until the Christmas holidays.

Hermione spent the two weeks between her trip to Diagon Alley and her drive to Kings Cross reading all new her fascinating schoolbooks—she now knew them so well that she could recite whole pages by heart. Admittedly, out of curiosity, she'd tried a few simple charms in the secrecy of her bedroom; she shrunk a few skirts and socks, wishing she could do the same to her front teeth without her parents noticing, and spent about ten minutes before bed each night floating a heavy book in front of her while she read. A few times, the book crashed painfully onto her thin legs, but she had the hang of the charm eventually. After her dreadful experience in Diagon Alley, she believed that only by knowing the information described in her books so well it came to her as second nature could she properly fit in with the magically brought up children, and she grew desperate to prove herself. Hermione remained determined to belong somewhere, and the wizarding world could become her best shot.

To outsiders, Hermione's suitcase probably could have carried any number of things including magazines, research journals, or a bag of crisps, but she smiled to herself wondering what the nearby old woman grumbling loudly about traffic would say about her trunk full of potions ingredients and spell books. She and her parents ambled through Kings Cross Station, searching for the barrier between Platform 9 and Platform 10, where Professor McGonagall said they'd need to cross straight through "solid wall" and out onto Platform 9¾. The prospect of running at a solid brick wall daunted Hermione, but she and her parents did it anyway—the not-so-solid brick wall revelation didn't seem as far-fetched as, well, flying broomsticks after all. So, when the Grangers finally situated themselves in front of the large brick barrier, Hermione gathered her wits about her and rushed hastily at the brick. The collision any sane person would have expected never came.

Hermione gasped. Her brown eyes swept around a vast glittering platform, perusing over an ocean of people with hundreds of trolleys just like hers. A large clock told her she was half an hour ahead of the eleven o'clock departure time, but many witches and wizards already crowded Platform 9¾. Whole families of children hustled onto the train to claim compartments for themselves and their friends, carrying owls, rats, toads, and cats, many dressed in "muggle clothes," as, according to McGonagall, the Ministry suggests for people to do while in parts of Kings Cross accessible to non-magical people, but others obviously hadn't even tried, as they already clad themselves in robes of midnight black—the Hogwarts school uniform.

A scarlet steam engine glittered in the station, dark gray smoke curling up from it like the body of a large snake. Hermione saw that students started boarding the grand Hogwarts Express, and, after saying a rather tear-jerking goodbye to her parents, she strode boldly onto it, joining the throng of Hogwarts students rushing onto the train. She found herself an empty compartment just as the warning bell sounded, and immediately changed into her new Hogwarts robes. Relaxing at last, Hermione picked up the book _Hogwarts, A History_, and began reading about the very train she sat in. How perfect, thought Hermione, that she should be taken from one world into another on a bustling howling train, a flame red portal between her childhood at 8 Heathgate in London, and her new home at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She'd been reading for a while, when she heard a small grunt from the corridor.

"Er, hello," a round-faced boy sputtered from outside the open door of her compartment, "You don't mind me sitting here do you? I've been up and down the train looking for good company, but every where's full."

Hermione smiled and nodded. The boy smiled in relief and strode to sit across from her, his trunk following clumsily behind him. He seemed rather distraught, she noticed, searching his pockets over and over again for _something_. Hermione knew what. She'd overheard him talking to an old woman who looked to be his grandmother on the platform a few minutes earlier—he seemed to have lost his toad. Not wanting to weird him out with her knowing this information, she decided to introduce herself. It was so exciting, meeting someone from an actual _wizarding_ family, and if this stranger wasn't from one of those, she didn't know _who_ could be. His grandmother was fashioned in deep magenta robes with a distinctively decorated hat with what Hermione suspected to be a vulture atop it—what's more, she was carrying a wand.

"Hello, I'm reading _Hogwarts, A History, _fascinating book—don't you think? Bathilda Bagshot really seems to know everything there is to know about the school. Of course, I'm sure there's much more to read by her—this is only just my first year at Hogwarts. Oh, I'm Hermione Granger, who are you?" She held out her hand.

"Uh," replied Neville, blankly, "I'm not quite sure what that is, really, but it sounds quite nice. I'm Neville Longbottom, and this is my first year too... Has everyone read that? I didn't know we were s'posed to." He took her outstretched hand and shook it, glancing nervously at the book in her other. Hermione was confused for a moment, she thought for sure everyone had already read _Hogwarts, A History_. Though she didn't know for sure herself, she assured Neville it was probably fine he hadn't already read it, and he relaxed a little.

"Actually, erm, Hermione…I've lost my toad… Trevor… could you help me look around? He keeps getting away from me!"

As the train made its last solid whistle and cleared away from Kings Cross Station, a trail of smoke billowing behind it, the two searched around their compartment and out in the busy corridor. After a while, Hermione took a break to change into her Hogwarts robes, not wanting to be the only one still wearing muggle clothes, but returned shortly to continue searching. Occasionally, she received rude glances, getting shoved around by the many people running up and down the aisle. They were so _childish_; Hermione had to constantly keep herself from rolling her eyes at them. She expected much better behavior coming from people dealing with such power as magic. Some of the jinxes she saw in _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection_ were hardly anything boisterous _children_ should be learning about. As the two neared the end of the train on their search, Neville's toad still hadn't turned up, and the expression of defeat plastered across the boy's face told Hermione he'd almost lost hope in the search. He'd poked his head into a few compartments, but no one seemed to have seen Trevor. However, he hadn't asked everyone, she was sure. Wanting to return to her seat to finish re-reading _Hogwarts, A History_ but not willing to leave a dejected Neville to search on his own, Hermione took initiative.

"Maybe you should try asking the people in here," Hermione suggested, and audaciously slid open the door to the nearest compartment, pulling Neville around to stand beside her.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one."

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